


Eagle's Shadow

by ghostdreaming



Series: The God of Cunoval Wood [2]
Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011), The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: A little bit of puking, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe-Magic, Ancient Rome, Captivity, Family Honor, Marcus being a idiot of a patient, Marcus is a subby-minded virgin, Marcus mistakes Esca for some kind of servant, Marcus!POV, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pagan Britain, Pagan Britains Defeating the Ancient Romans, Pagan Gods, References to Roman Sexual Practices, Roman Britain, Secrets, Slave Marcus, Sneaky Esca, Stubborn Marcus, The Celtic Peoples were awsome at textiles, War-Captive Marcus, but its a honest mistake given circumstances, war injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:02:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3279440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostdreaming/pseuds/ghostdreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus Flavius Aquila would rather die than be a captive of the Britons. Until one recognizes his eagle charm as a copy of the golden eagle standard that had disappeared years ago along with Marcus' father and the entire rest of the Ninth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really should be working on my other ongoing stories! But since I was asked so prettily....

Marcus woke to blue eyes watching him from the shadows.

He had faint recolections of chunks of time having passed him by in disorienting washes of all-encompassing torment accompanied by random punctuations of uncomprehendable babbling. The forbooding fact that he now woke to find himself alone but for a single grim, and clearly still compleately wild tribes-man, judging by the  entirely non-Roman looking appearance to the collected series of garments and accessories he wore, spoke ill of the events he apparently missed happening.

"You're awake again. Good." The paler man spoke. In flawless Roman Latin.

"What happened?"

" Your Roman 'doctors' are incompitant healers." Though the man (a native type of doctor or some kind of servant it seemed like) was small, compared to the soldiers that Marcus was used to, but he had the same deadly aura and entrancing stare of a poisonous snake that made the dangerous threat he presented evident. " And your army lost control of this region and fort four days ago."

Horror and shame did wonders for pushing aside the pain he had been trying to ignore. Despair choked him. Closing his eyes, in a useless attempt to prevent the enemy from seeing his weakness, Marcus fought down the devastation erupting deep inside his heart. He had failed! All the efforts he had put into regaining his family's lost honor would have been for nothing if it was all ruined now by the loss of his first commanding post to a enemy that Rome claimed to be no more than small clusters of enpovernished  barbarians!

Without even thinking about it he reached desperately for the comfort of his pendent. The little carved eagle, the last gift ever given to him by his father, had always given him peace and new strength when ever he felt himself in need of aid. It was-

Not there!

Eyes flying back open, hand still scrabbling desperately to close over what should have been found resting in its place against his collarbone, he bolted upright. Only to be incapable of anything beyond clenching his jaw shut, so tightly his teeth were ground together, as he fought to prevent the unmanly scream from escaping and further dishonoring him when white-hot agony, as though suddenly being repeatedly stabbed with hundreds of heated knives, clawed and tore him instantly apart.     

He could hear the Briton cursing something in his tribal tongue that sounded more like a angry cat's enraged hissing than real words. Up close the colorful native cloths blurred his sight with their densely woven dizzying patterns and indecipherably tangled shapes...

Marcus successfully overcame voicing a cry but when the resulting need for air finally compelled him into taking a gulping breath he promptly gagged folding over to topple sideways and lost the contents of his stomach.

He was grabbed and turned so that his expellasions were directed away and strong arms held him securely up and out of range or angle of any further befoulment. 

When done he was left limp and shuddering in the tight confines of the hard bands that pressed across his hips and chest keeping firmly in place and still.

From behind him a angry, "Foolish Roman." was growled low, dangerous, and far too close. The Briton's warm breath stirred the hair on the back of his sweaty neck making it rise in prickling warning alarm in reaction to the sensation of his vulnerable positioning that had him as though he were a trapped prey animal on the instant proceeding the predator's jaws closing for the killing bite. Unbelievably it felt strangely like the shorter and lighter body over his was encageing him...dominating.

He was a captive, badly injured, unclothed body being pinned onto a bed. That he was too old for the ideals of beauty wouldn't matter if he were sentenced to the life of some kind of common- use bed slave. Marcus had never had a lover. When he'd been younger the taint on his family's name had rendered him undesirable to the honorable who might have taken him on. And his mother had been vigilant and smart enough to keep him from falling into the hands of those who would have been cruel and harmful. So he'd never had an older man teach him as a boy. And he had never himself taken a woman or boy that was lower ranking enough to be required to yield to his authority once he had obtained it. He'd never even taken a slave. His own hand was enough those few times that his loins needed more easing than exhausting one's self in warrior training had provided. 

The threads of the sleeve brushing against his lower belly felt as smooth and ticklish as quality silk...

Then the other man shifted and there was the relief brought by the cool touch of wetted cloth upon his skin moving gently over Marcus' body slowly cleansing face and neck pleasantly. He was being carefully washed as though he were nothing more than a small fragile babe but Marcus was no infant or weakling to be passefied by soothing caresses, "My eagle-,"

"This?" The arm around his waist released its grip and moved away leaving a line of cold and a feeling of greater exposure. " By the rules your people follow it is now mine by right. As are you." The small piece of shaped wood was daggled in the air in front of him for a moment before being dropped to land softly on the bedding close enough for clumsy fingers to snag and enfold and hold against his heart reverent relief.

Thank the gods. Now all he needed was the strength to escape back to civilization or die trying. To live or die he would do so as a man not-

"It is said that there is a tribe in the north which owns a Roman's eagle made of gold ." 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just had to get these two more or less better introduced before I could call this part done.

' _The Ninth Legion's Standard!'_ " Who has it? Where?" In his mind the image that was always so near his thoughts blazed forth like he was still a boy standing beneath it.

"Others. Far from here." No! It was near! He was close! He had to find it!

" That eagle is Rome's!" The claim was being issued by his own voice before he could be forced to listen to the torturous words that he feared to hear of its coming to current fate...of what failure or dishonor had befallen the legion- had taken away his  _Father!_

One rough, fast movement had Marcus brutally flipped onto his back and pinned flat. There was at least a single positive to this it in that the force of the clash was enough that it stole away all the breath from his body so that the resulting new flail of pain had no air for which to further his continued humiliation once again. He would not be reduced to an existence spent weeping and crying beneath this barbarian for the continual entertainment of savages!  

" Was, but nolonger. Rome brought it to our shores. Is it any wonder the tribes would take as offerings that which was sent to conquer them?" The Briton's voice was a hard rasp but there was the shadow of something melancholy haunting those words. Marcus' thoughts were struck with the memory of the drab little british village that lay(had lain?) at the foot of the fort with its guarded- eyed tribespeople and their rudimentary and poor sod huts and dull grubby garb. Of the man Cradoc, with his splendid chariot-team, whom Marcus had though a friend but then had needed to kill, and in turn had nearly been killed by, when the tribesman had been among the natives driving their war-chariots in the attack on the fort. The man's woman and sun-browned child. What had become of the peasants that had not fought? They would not have been safe in their flimsy hovels where the warring forces would have been charging through and clashing repeatedly over the course of the battle like a violent tide. Had they escaped by running? Been spared due to their lineage? Or slaughtered for having bowed down to Roman rule? Compared to this man they were like an entirely different people. Only the resemblances in ethnic colorings and the unaccessible secrets in his eyes were the same.

This Briton was looking down at him, and Roman authority, from a position of victory and conquest. "What has become of the soldiers of this garrison? What have your leaders done with them?"  He had so far been spared from having to suffer any cruel treatment and in fact had benefitted from some generous care in the tending of his wound while helpless and unaware. Surely he could let that give him some hope that it was a favorable sign for the welfare of his command as well?

"My leaders?" The smaller man's expression twisted the pale brows lowering still further in incomprehension

"Those who command you." Marcus clarified even though the Briton had clearly understood everything else the Roman had said before.

" Command me?" The edge of a growl rumbled in the way the words were spoken.

"Yes. Your people have leaders. I do know that much."

" We do. But none command me."

" Because you are a doctor- a healer?"

"No. I am Esca. I watch over you now. Your soldiers are as well as they can be. Those that survived the battle will all be safely returned to Rome." The words were reassuring yet Marcus was leery of trusting the words of this unknown man. He was only a servant after all, though one with the authority to have control over prisoners, and one of the enemy. 

Blue eyes continued to stare steadily back at the centurion the harsh face softening into something calmer and gentler on taking in the captive's wary distrust easing back and then off of Marcus while taking considerate care not to accidently jostle or bump the injured man. "You may visit them when you are strong enough. Rest. No harm will come to you here and now. Sleep. Recover. I need to tend your pup."

Marcus had no intention of obeying, not when he needed to learn more of what this man knew, and instead continued to watch the stranger move around Marcus' quarters as though he owned them, bending down over a second cot, that must have been made an addition to the room some time before he'd awakened, to untangle the familiar looking wiggling lump. Then upon rising again paused abruptly that pale coppery-bronze head tilting slightly to flick a slow deliberate glance back at his prone audience.

"Sleep now warrior. Rest and heal."

Marcus found his eyes immediately closing....

...And above the darkness falling over him he could see the glint of metal feathers calling him to follow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Esca's clothes does have real silk thread. Trade makes it not entirely unimaginable in our own ancient history for that to be possible, and a sure way to get practically anything from anywhere in this alternate universe's world, even though the delivery time would be a hassle. And I am so going to take that and run with it!


End file.
